<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>A hundred miles through the desert repenting by SkyScribbles</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773525">A hundred miles through the desert repenting</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyScribbles/pseuds/SkyScribbles'>SkyScribbles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A thousand fingerprints on the surfaces of who I am [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>'Redemption' is a terrifying word. Sometimes you just have to start with 'trying', Angst with a Happy Ending, Caleb Widogast's Backstory, Developing Relationship, Essek goes on a literal guilt trip, Essek's Bad Acting Skills, Gen, M/M, Odd Friendships, Post C2E110, mentions of parent death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:09:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,556</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773525</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyScribbles/pseuds/SkyScribbles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I would not hurt any friends of yours, Beauregard.’</p><p>‘You already did.’ Beau gestures to the list of names, slowly crumpling in Essek’s fist. ‘So go meet them. See what you did, and decide whether you’re going to keep running from it.’</p><p>(In which Essek encounters some other honorary members of the Mighty Nein, and comes to a decision.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A thousand fingerprints on the surfaces of who I am [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>504</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A hundred miles through the desert repenting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've wanted to write about Essek really facing up to the consequences of his actions for a while. I also wanted to write Essek interacting with some of my other favourite NPCs. At some point my brain said, 'Why can't it be both?' and it... got out of hand.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a moment, Essek is convinced that Beau is about to murder him.</p><p>She’s the last to leave when the Mighty Nein file out of his home. Veth brushes past Essek without looking at him, but Caduceus pats his shoulder as he passes, and Jester grins at him between licking cupcake crumbs from her fingertips. Beau puts one foot across the threshold - then pivots, whiplash-fast. Her hand flashes out, clamps around Essek’s wrist, and he –</p><p>He panics, naturally.</p><p>His mouth goes dry; his stomach lurches. Beau’s free hand plunges into a pocket, and Essek remembers Nicodranas and thinks <em> manacles. </em>He tries to pull away, but his shoulders thump against the doorframe and Beau’s grip doesn’t relax. His mind catapults through his list of emergency contingencies and exit strategies: Misty Step out of her grasp. Teleport to one of the secure locations he’s set up. Live in hollow loneliness and never see the Mighty Nein again.</p><p>His lips part as he looks to the others. The last thing he wants to do is beg, but he’s ready to.<em> Don’t turn me in. They will march me through the streets in chains and pull me by the neck when I stumble. They will drag me into the wilds and execute me there and I will bleed out into the earth of the wastes alone, you cannot let her turn me in – </em></p><p>Beau yanks her hand from her pocket. Essek breathes in so fast that it becomes a hiss, and flinches back.</p><p>A silence. Behind Beau’s shoulder, the others turn around. Fjord’s mouth opens and closes, as if he isn’t sure whether speaking would make things better or worse. Jester and Caduceus glance at each other, and take half-steps in Essek’s direction.</p><p>But Beau is not holding manacles. She’s holding a folded square of paper.</p><p>Essek releases his breath. She is not about to chain him or punch him unconscious. And a second passes, but none of the Nein say <em> we changed our minds. We are taking you before the Bright Queen. </em></p><p>He lives, then. For now.</p><p>Beau slaps the paper down into Essek’s hand and releases his wrist. ‘I've been thinking about what you said. About regret being a new sensation or whatever.’</p><p>Essek lifts his chin, hoping that he’s staring her down in a composed and unruffled manner. ‘Yes?’</p><p>‘I think you need practice. At, you know, the regret thing.’</p><p>Ah. Here it comes again, then, the <em> you have hurt people, Essek </em> and the <em> people have died, Essek. </em> Which he knows. He <em> knows. </em>He has never denied it, so what good will it do, for him to spend hours piling guilt upon himself?</p><p>He does not say this. Instead, he unfolds the paper.</p><p>Beau has written four names: two completely unknown, two horribly familiar, each followed by a brief description of the person in question. He looks up at her, frowning, and she shrugs. ‘Just some friends of ours. People who got hurt in this war you helped start. So if you've got a moment in between all the dealing-with-loose-ends... go talk to them. I know you don't have a problem getting places.' She folds her arms. Her face is still, like it was on the ship when she asked about Adeen and Essek said <em> freeing. </em> ‘Ask them about what the war did to them. Get some fucking perspective.’</p><p>‘Some of these people are in the Empire. It is not entirely safe for me to –’</p><p>‘It's not entirely safe for you to keep making a really bad case for why we should let you get away with what you did.’</p><p>The words hit like a blow to the face, and Essek forces himself not to flinch. His eyes run over the rest of the Nein, and he thinks: <em> this friendship is not safe for me. </em></p><p>‘You get that I'm trusting you with this. Right?’ Beau does not soften, exactly. But she steps back, and what she's saying now sounds more like a challenge than an accusation. ‘The people on that list? They matter to us. And I’m telling you how to find them and I’m trusting you not to start shit. I wouldn’t give that to just anyone. I’m – ’ She kicks at the ground. ‘I’m giving you a chance here, Essek.’</p><p>
  <em> I’m trusting you. </em>
</p><p>Essek swallows. He’s used to Beau challenging him; he’s used to bristling in response. He is not used to hearing the words <em> I’m trusting you </em>in her voice. Neither is he prepared for how his defensiveness crashes into a pang of aching gratitude. ‘I would not hurt any friends of yours, Beauregard.’</p><p>‘You already did.’ Beau gestures to the list of names, slowly crumpling in Essek’s fist. ‘So go meet them. Get a good look at what you did, and decide whether you’re going to keep running from it.’   </p><p>Essek curls his hand tighter around the paper. Beau stares at him for another second, then jerks her head in what might be a farewell and marches away towards the gate. The others dither briefly before following, Caduceus and Jester both throwing smiles over their shoulders. (The smiles of friends trying to give encouragement? Or the smiles of healers trying to soothe a doomed man?) Caleb lingers, hands in his pockets, and for a moment Essek thinks –  hopes – that he might speak.</p><p>But Caleb holds Essek’s eyes for only a second. Then he slopes away after his friends.</p><p>The gates swing shut behind the Mighty Nein, and Essek watches them until the streets have swallowed them up. Then he squeezes the paper into a ball, folds it out again, and stuffs it into a pocket of his cloak. Out of sight.</p><p>It remains there for a week, untouched.</p><p>He does not look at the names again. But he turns them over in his mind until he could recount them mid-trance, and he feels no stab of guilt. He does not feel his world come crashing down because these people who know the Mighty Nein have somehow been injured at his hands.</p><p>And then there’s a debate in court. The Dusk Captain brings up the question of what, if any, overtures of peaceful cooperation to make to the Empire - and she is challenged, of course. It remains a discussion for all of two and a half minutes before dissolving into a pretentious bickering-game, and Essek listens to the veiled cruelties flung across the chamber and aches to be in a Dancing Light-lit dining room with a ginger cat on his lap. Someone mentions Adeen Tasithar, and Essek’s breathing freezes until the conversation crawls on. He speaks up only once. Whatever he says makes his mother draw in a hiss of a breath, and oh, Light, she sounds so much like him.</p><p>On the way out of the Bastion, she reprimands him with her voice gentle and her eyes vicious, and Essek nods and recounts learned-by-rote apologies. He slinks home and sinks into a chair, wrapping his arms around his upper body for comfort.</p><p>In his pocket, the paper rustles.</p><p>Essek goes still. Then thinks, <em> I cannot possibly feel any worse today. </em></p><p>He goes to the mirror and casts Disguise Self, conjuring – not Dezran, this time. It would not do for the Assembly to hear that Lord Thain has been wandering about the Empire. So he makes himself a nobody. Someone who could pass for a Wildlander, unaffiliated and harmless.  Essek regards the lie of a face, then – as his mind strays to the Mighty Nein, as it always does – he adds freckles like Jester’s, bushy eyebrows like Veth’s, and a tunic the dusky purple of Caleb’s coat.</p><p>Then he collects Beau’s list and his teleportation chalk, and heads to his laboratory.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Watchmaster Bryce Feelid of Alfield. Genderfluid half-elf, pretty much runs the whole town because the starosta’s a useless asshole. Blond hair, shoulder-length. They’re dealing with a lot right now, do not make things worse for them or so fucking help me.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Alfield is a tired place.</p><p>Rosohna felt anxious during the war. But there was always a confidence underneath that, a sleek smugness, a feeling that no one there could ever really be harmed behind the magics and the walls. Not so Alfield. As Essek slinks through the streets under the cover of evening and an Invisibility spell, the town has the air of someone trying to sleep off an injury. The houses are dusted with scorch marks. A few are still wreathed in wooden scaffolding.</p><p>Which is not Essek’s fault. None of the battlefields extended this far southwest.</p><p>The first he sees of Bryce Feelid, they have a gnome starosta hopping up and down in front of them, blustering like an unimpressive, robed thunderstorm. Bryce listens without snapping. No sooner has the Starosta left than a woman touches Bryce’s arm and stammers about her fears of gnoll ambushes on the fieldworkers. Bryce soothes her, promises that the fields will be well-patrolled, and continues on their way. They don’t even reach the end of the street before a middle-aged halfling runs to them, shouting about a fight in the inn.</p><p>There’s something familiar about this, Essek thinks as he trails in the Watchmaster’s wake, something that it takes him a moment to place. Then he smiles, and has to bite back a chuckle. A person trying to do their work while being clawed at by the idiocy of their higher-ups? Yes, Bryce Feelid is familiar indeed.</p><p>Essek slips into the Candleglow Inn after the Watchmaster and the halfling – with rather less grace than intended, thanks to a miscalculation in regards to the speed at which the door would close. By the time he's pulled his cloak free, the fight is already over. A stern look from Bryce is enough to make the combatants let go of each other’s tunics, cough up coins to pay for damages, and file out into the streets.</p><p>As soon as the door closes, the halfling sits heavily on one of the still-intact benches. ‘I appreciate this, Bryce. Only just got the whole business off the ground again. I really can't afford to have brawls messing up the place.’</p><p>‘Not at all.’ Bryce lifts a fallen table upright with impressive ease. ‘Let me know if there's any more trouble. I should get back to things.’</p><p>The halfling squints at them. ‘I keep tabs on when you Crownsguard tend to get off duty, and I'm pretty sure your shift ended ten minutes ago. If you’re really planning on working overtime tonight, at least get a drink before you go back to it. On the house, for helping out.’</p><p>There’s a brief battle of politeness between the two, as Bryce insists on paying and the halfling insists on refusing their money. Bryce agrees, at last, to pay half price, then slips out of the back door and into an outside seating area.</p><p>Essek waits until the innkeeper’s back is turned. Then he drops his invisibility and follows.</p><p>Bryce sits up the moment the door opens, and a millisecond’s-worth of tired frustration flashes over their face. Then they release their tankard and fold their hands together. Straight-backed. Professional. ‘What can I do for you?’</p><p>‘Oh. I – nothing. I don’t mean to take up your time, I just - ’ Light, sometimes Essek forgets just how <em>bad </em>he is at conversation. ‘I'm not a resident. I’m passing through.’</p><p>He reminds himself that he can<em> be </em>awkward. He's not a Shadowhand or an Umavi's son to Bryce Feelid; he has no appearances to keep up here. The realisation unsticks his tongue. ‘I’m Fhaorn Gabreth. Of Uthodurn,’ he says - an utter lie, obviously. ‘I’m a researcher. I, ah, happened to be passing this way for… research.’ About forty percent a lie. ‘I believe we have mutual acquaintances.’ Not a lie at all. ‘I’m a friend of the Mighty Nein.’</p><p>Light, he wishes he knew whether that part is a lie.</p><p>The smile that spreads across Bryce’s face at the words <em>Mighty Nein</em> is expected. The stab of jealousy that Essek feels is not. Of course, of <em>course </em>the Nein have other friends, other people who love them. How could they not?</p><p>He also isn’t expecting Bryce to wave him into a seat beside them. ‘Friends of theirs will always be welcome here. How are they? Last I saw of them, they were heading to the coast, and they’ve not appeared since. With the exception of some, um, interestingly-timed messages.’</p><p>Essek’s mouth twitches. ‘Yes, I'm familiar with those messages myself. And they are well, I think. They’ve found their way into a comfortable home and some powerful allies. They’re doing good work.’</p><p>‘I’m very glad to hear it. So will everyone else be, I’m sure.’</p><p>‘They’re well-known here in Alfield, then?’</p><p>‘Not so much well-known as well-liked. About a year ago, they reclaimed about a dozen kidnapped citizens in the wake of a gnoll attack. That does tend to make people popular, even when they're gone again within the day.’ Bryce chuckles, and takes a sip of their ale. ‘So how did you meet them?’</p><p>
  <em>Treason. A betrayal performed before I ever saw them.</em>
</p><p>‘I was assigned to help them with some… objectives that they were pursuing.’ Essek wishes he’d thought to buy himself a drink, if just so he’d have something to do with his hands. ‘I performed a few favours for them, and they invited me to dinner in return, and we became friends, I suppose.’ Eager to veer the conversation away from himself, he adds, ‘They think highly of you.’</p><p>‘And I think highly of them. I’d be glad to see them back sometime. A group of capable mercenaries could take a lot of weight from my shoulders right now.’</p><p>‘Are things so dire? I hadn’t thought that the war had impacted so far into the Empire.’</p><p>Bryce smiles wryly. 'I can see how it might seem that way from Uthodurn. But while we might not be as deep into the Marrow Valley as Felderwin or Hupperdook, there's still only open ground between us and the Ashkeepers. That was enough for Kryn presence to bleed through. No major attacks, thank the gods, but... sometimes you don't need a battle for a town to be brought almost to its knees. The gnoll raid left us with repairs to do and food scarce, days before the taxes were increased and half our produce was appropriated for the front lines. Half my men got sent away to reinforce the east, leaving me with only a token force.' Their voice has become a tired monotone.  'We lost our Lawmaster to the gnolls, and the replacement has about as much backbone as an ooze. And just when I was needed most, someone had the brilliant idea of packing me off to reinforce Bladegarden.’</p><p>There had been discussion in the Bastion of launching an attack on Bladegarden. Essek keeps his face blank. ‘I’m glad the war ended in time for you to return safely.’</p><p>‘Thank you. I try not to think too hard about what might have happened, if it had lasted even a few more months.’ Their fingers clench around their tankard. ‘Of course, I was one of the lucky ones. Plenty of us didn't return. And one of my guards was carried home without a leg, leaving me yet another man down and her family barely making ends meet. Not to mention all the refugees who came through. I'm doing all I can for them, but some of them are still afraid to return eastward –’</p><p>They stop, suddenly sheepish. ‘I’m sorry. You didn’t come here to listen to the complaints of a tired Watchmaster.’</p><p>But of course, that is exactly what Essek was sent here to do. Essek was sent to notice the purple shadows under Bryce’s eyes, the hint of gauntness in their cheeks that speaks of lost weight and sleepless nights.</p><p>‘It is all right,’ Essek says. ‘I can see that it might be a relief to have an outsider to say these things to. Your starosta appears too... <em>brittle</em> under pressure to give much of an understanding ear.’</p><p>Bryce smiles ruefully. ‘You’re being generous. He's a prick.’</p><p>Essek snorts.</p><p>‘But you’re right. It’s good to have an ear. I’m not about to say any of this to the people; they’re carrying enough.’</p><p>And quite suddenly, Essek is not seeing himself anymore when he looks at Bryce. He is seeing Verin. A commander plagued with difficulties, always short-handed, but giving the best they can. Bryce Feelid might not be grappling with abominations from the Abyss, but with that starosta, they might as well be.</p><p>‘I am sorry that those in power have ignored you,’ Essek says. Because fraught as things are between himself and Verin, he still howls inwardly every time the court declares it unnecessary to reinforce Bazzoxan.</p><p>‘Well, that’s always the case. Same political bullshit as ever. Those with power make wars, and those without die in them. Those in my position, with a little power but not much – it’s our job to be the buffer between the two.’</p><p><em>Those with power. </em>Those who hold positions like <em>Shadowhand. </em>Essek clenches his fists beneath the table. ‘Alfield is fortunate to have you.’</p><p>‘I hope I don’t disappoint them.’ Bryce empties their tankard, and glances towards the tavern door. ‘Thadeus was right; I do need a break. Perhaps I can get you a drink? If you’ve stories to share about the Mighty Nein that don’t involve them trampling over Imperial laws, I’d be happy to hear them.’</p><p>And Essek should refuse. He should leave.</p><p>Instead, he talks with Bryce long into the evening. He modifies his stories, of course, so that nothing he says will hint to Bryce that they're sharing drinks with a Kryn mage - but he finds ways to tell Bryce of ball-bearings on the floor. A bathrobe created with a Seeming spell. Beau walking with swagger. Bryce laughs, and Essek smiles along with them.</p><p>And there’s nothing Essek can do, of course. He cannot regrow a guardsmen’s leg, or give this town a decent starosta, or un-steal the Beacons. He wouldn't do the latter even if he could. But there's something comforting, in knowing that he can make Bryce Feelid laugh. And in running Mending spells over the inside of the inn as he makes his way home. </p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Kiri. Female kenku, she’ll probably be five by now. Lives in Hupperdook with Wallace and Gilda Schuster and their kids, a family of gnome butchers in the Idleworks Shelf. You’ll probably want to visit at night, because drow, so watch out for the parties.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>It takes Essek all of three minutes to decide that he despises Hupperdook.</p><p>The soot is unpleasant. The streets are a cacophony. And why, <em>why </em>in the names of every single god that Essek does not worship, would anyone invent an entire culture based around partying at the only time a that a drow can comfortably be outside?</p><p>Gnomes dart around his waist level. Music blasts from every corner until Essek strongly considers casting a Silence spell centred on himself. Fireworks erupt, bright and loud enough to make him flinch. By the time he is halfway to the Idleworks Shelf, he has made a studious lack of eye contact with six different street vendors.</p><p>This is a city for extroverts<em>. </em>Maybe Beauregard sent him here to torture him.</p><p>He could always leave. He has no idea what kind of excuse he could make for visiting the Schuster family, and he has even less idea how to hold a dialogue with a five-year-old kenku. He could find a quiet alleyway and teleport home, and Beauregard would likely never trust him again, but at least that would be the end of –</p><p>‘Hello. My name is Kiri Schuster, and I’m lost.’</p><p>Essek spins around.</p><p>A little further down the street, a kenku girl is standing still amongst the chaos, beak open as the phrase spills out again and again. Essek knows how kenku speak, academically; it’s still a shock to listen to the child emitting the voice of an adult gnome.</p><p>The Hupperdook citizens are too busy rushing back and forth to pay attention. Essek straightens his cloak – unnecessary, he realises a moment later, since it’s concealed by an illusion – and drifts towards her. ‘You say you're lost?’</p><p>The head tilts. Black eyes blink up at him. ‘I am Kiri,’ the girl says – in Jester’s voice.</p><p>Essek swallows hard. Stares.</p><p>‘Can you please take me back to my family at number five, Sootwattle Street, the Idleworks Shelf?’</p><p>It’s the gnomish voice again, and Essek’s tongue remembers how to function. ‘I should think so. I dread to think how many times you've wandered off, that your parents have given you that phrase to repeat.'</p><p>Kiri ignores this. ‘Do you live around here?’</p><p>Jester’s voice again. ‘I – no. I’m a visitor here, but I can escort you safely.’</p><p>She bobs her head and trills out Yasha’s words. ‘Okay okay okay.’</p><p>The streets are a labyrinth, and the signposts are all at gnomish eye-level, but a few requests for directions and a few fortunate guesses brings them to an iron archway with <em>Idleworks Shelf </em>stamped upon it. Rain clatters on metal as they pass underneath. Kiri glowers at the sky and shakes herself, droplets flying from her feathers. ‘It’s an amphibious assault,’ she says, in a deep, drawling voice that it takes Essek a moment to place.</p><p>He pulls his parasol from his belt, opens it, and holds it over their heads. ‘I had forgotten that Fjord used to talk like that.’</p><p>Kiri’s head snaps around to face him. ‘Mister Fjord?’ she says – the voice completely unfamiliar this time.</p><p>Essek nods. ‘I’m… acquainted with him and his friends.’</p><p>‘The Mighty Nein!’</p><p>Veth. Essek’s insides constrict. Hearing that voice address him with such warmth – so easy, so friendly, so bright – hurts more than he anticipated. ‘Yes. How did you meet them?’</p><p>Silence, for a few moments, except for the rain and the clack of claws on the cobbles. Kiri walks on with her eyes on the ground. Then, in the same gnomish voice as before – one of the Schusters, Essek assumes – she says, ‘We never got the whole story, but it seems she was separated from her family, or lost them, during the war.’</p><p>Oh. That is why Beauregard wanted him to speak to the child, then.</p><p>‘I’m very sorry,’ Essek says, and he expects it to feel just as shallow as his apologies to the Umavi. It does not. ‘So the Mighty Nein found you, after that?’</p><p>Kiri nods. ‘Protect.’</p><p>‘That is not a surprise. They are good people.’</p><p>‘You’re a fan,’ says Fjord’s old drawl.</p><p>‘I am fond of them, yes. I live near them, and we have spent some time together. It has been a while since I last saw them, though. I – ’ He looks at Kiri, this child who has no reason to ever believe that the Nein will ever not want to visit her. Who will never be greeted by them with anything other than smiles. ‘I have been missing them deeply.’</p><p>The huge black eyes blink at him. ‘I have been missing them deeply.’</p><p>Well. That’s unsettling.</p><p>‘I will let them know as much when I next see them, and tell them to come and pay you a visit.’</p><p>‘A visit,' Kiri says brightly, and bobs her head.</p><p>They walk on, Kiri occasionally trilling out a mimicked phrase, Essek responding with nods and <em>mm</em>s. Another turn of the street brings them to the butcher’s shop, its grimy but lantern-lit windows obscured by drizzle. Kiri makes the noise of a purring cat, nods with satisfaction, and turns to Essek.  ‘Thank you thank you,’ she says, as Jester again.</p><p>‘It was no trouble.’ Which it wasn’t, apart from the rain, and the Light-damned party, and the ache of hearing her speak in the Mighty Nein’s voices.</p><p>Kiri twists her head to the side and regards him for a moment. Then Caleb’s voice, quiet and seeming quieter because of the rain, says, ‘This means we are friends.’</p><p>A lump rises in Essek’s throat. So many weeks spent aching to hear Caleb’s voice call him that word again – and now he has heard it, and it wasn’t even Caleb saying it.</p><p>Kiri pats his arm, and scuttles away towards her home. The door swings open, and a voice from within shouts, ‘Kiri! Where were you?’</p><p>Whatever excuses Kiri makes are drowned by a shrill chorus of children’s voices. Essek lingers, counting. Four young gnomes in all, he thinks. Four children, and the Schusters still found room for Kiri in their home and hearts. Five children crammed into a butcher’s shop barely larger than Essek’s laboratory, and the Schusters still love and worry for this girl who is not their blood.</p><p>It takes him a moment to realise that there is a bitter feeling in him. And it takes another moment, as he wanders through the rain to find an empty street to teleport in, to recognise it for what it is: jealousy. Tinged with anger.</p><p>The jealousy is for little Kiri Schuster, who had parents worth mourning. Who has found a family whose love is unconditional. The anger, though, is for himself. How many times has Kiri lost herself in the city? How many times has she wandered away from home, standing on street corners and watching the parties flash by with her huge black eyes, searching for something she will never find again? Is this the only way she can express a lostness that she will never be able to voice?</p><p>It would have happened anyway. The war was always going to come.</p><p>But if he had never stolen the Beacons, and the war had exploded by some other means in ten, twenty years’ time – then at least it would have left Kiri a grieving adult. Not a heartbroken child. And while Essek does not miss his father, he is no stranger to the sleepless nights and shifted world that follows the death of a parent.</p><p>And he knows, more than anything, what it is to be lost and alone and then to find the Mighty Nein. Kiri Schuster is his echo, in more ways than one.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Yeza and Luc Brenatto. Currently living in Nicodranas. You fucking know who they are.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Essek has seen the ocean once before. This, though, is the first time he’s ever taken a moment to <em>look</em> at it.</p><p>It’s not that he didn’t think the Whitedrawn Lagoon beautiful. He felt the draw of the water, the hypnosis of the waves' rise and fall. There was just the small matter of the eye-burning brightness of the sun on the ocean. Parasol or no parasol, it was not a good place for a drow to be.</p><p>Nicodranas, though. The sky is overcast enough that Essek can stand beneath it without pain. The sea rises to the horizon, the wind crinkling its surface into ridges like dried paint, a swathe of shimmering white falling on it through a break in the clouds. Every breath tastes of salt.</p><p>At the fringes of the beach, Luc Brenatto and his friends play-tussle in the waves, laughing.</p><p>His father watches from a distance, eyes flicking up from the pages of his book to check on the children. And Essek, his parasol planted in the sand, reads and watches too.</p><p>There was no need for Beauregard to send him here. The boy is fine. More than that: he’s happy. Healthy. Plumper than Kiri, dressed in the bold colours of Concordian clothing. He’s at home in the shallow water and he has a golden beach to play on. <em>He would never have had this, </em>Essek thinks, <em>if I had not taken his father – </em>and he has to snort and shake his head at his own disgusting arrogance.</p><p>Fine. He does understand why he’s here. Whatever unintended benefits it might have had for the Brenatto family, kidnapping a father, throwing him in a cell, and being fully prepared to let him rot there was a despicable thing to do. At the time, he called it necessary. He cannot now.  Yeza gave Essek what he wanted just when he was asked politely, and it was <em>Caleb,</em> in the end, who gave Essek the potion that the Assembly brewed in Yeza’s cellar.</p><p>But there was no harm done. Yeza is suntanned and comfortable and Luc is fine –</p><p>A crossbow bolt smacks into the sand next to Essek's knee.</p><p>Essek lurches to his feet, narrowly resisting the impulse to cast a Darkness spell on himself. His eyes flash over the landscape, searching for an assassin. For a member of the Aurora Watch who’s followed him all this way. For Veth, who must have recognised him despite his disguise and decided, justly, that she cannot risk him near her husband and son –</p><p>Instead, he sees Luc Brenatto, whooping as he holds a miniature crossbow above his head. His friends are shrieking with glee. Yeza hurls his book to the sand and sprints towards his son. ‘<em>Luc Brenatto!’</em></p><p>Luc’s laughter peters off as his father marches over and swipes the crossbow from his hand. ‘How many times, Luc? We <em>don’t shoot at the sunbathers.’</em></p><p>There’s a minute or two of angry scolding. It ends with a declaration that Yeza is confiscating the crossbow for a week, and that he and Luc are going home ‘as soon as I’ve apologised to that poor gentleman.’</p><p><em>I had you dragged through the fringes of the Underdark in the path of a purple worm, </em>Essek snarls silently, as Yeza hurries across the beach toward him. <em>I left you there, barely fed and alone.</em></p><p>‘I’m so sorry about that, sir. My son’s very excited about that crossbow of his. The bolts have rubber tips, I swear –’</p><p>Essek shakes his head. ‘There is no harm done, as you see. Please, don’t interrupt your excursion on my account.’</p><p>‘I’m really glad you didn’t get hit, and honestly, I'm almost as glad that you're not mad. But Luc’s got to learn that he can’t just shoot at anyone anytime. My wife's a mercenary, you see, and it looks like he's taking after her. If there were a bit more of me in him, maybe he'd just want to make potions out of mud, and potions are still a little dangerous but at least they don’t disrupt innocent sunbathers –’</p><p>‘So, you’re an alchemist here in Nicodranas?’ Essek says, loudly. The word <em>innocent </em>being applied to himself is not a thing he can stand to listen to.</p><p>‘Oh, uh, yeah. We’re from the Empire, but we moved down here to be safer. What with, you know, the war and all.’ There’s a tension in the words that speaks of a remembered cell and a half-eaten shirt. ‘How about you? I hope you didn’t come too far to visit, just to get shot at.’</p><p>Light. He’s got himself ensnared in small talk. This trip gets worse by the moment. ‘Uthodurn. You know. North.’</p><p>‘Oh. Wow. That really is a long way just to get shot at.’</p><p>‘I assure you, the being shot at was not my intention. I’m travelling. For research.’</p><p>‘Into what?’</p><p>And because Essek cannot say <em>the consequences of a war I helped create, </em>and because his mind is still on the silver vial that this man filled, he says, ‘Alchemy, as it happens.’</p><p>‘Wow, really? Do you have a particular field of study?’</p><p>Now this kind of conversation, Essek can do. ‘Mostly the arcane-adjacent side of alchemy. Research into how certain spells or magical effects can be reproduced in potion form.’</p><p>‘Oh, wow, yeah. It’s fascinating, how we can use plants and minerals to achieve the same effects as a mage speaking the incantation words and performing the somatic components. Don’t you find it strange that sometimes the ingredients you need to create a spell alchemically are nothing at all like the components that a mage would use to cast it?’</p><p>Behind his father’s back, Luc has retrieved his crossbow with a sleight of hand that Essek didn’t even notice happening, and is dashing off to re-join his friends. Essek could point it out; he does not. His desire to escape the conversation has vanished.</p><p>He talks, and he posits theories and listens to Yeza’s delighted gushing about chemicals. And it’s <em>glorious, </em>being able to talk to someone about this thing that he loves, someone who isn’t a Dynasty scholar who’d claim Essek’s ideas for his own at the slightest opportunity. It’s the same electric feeling of connection that he shared that day with Caleb and Nott in his laboratory, and it’s not until twenty minutes and three Luc-traumatised gulls later that Essek blinks, looks at Yeza, and thinks: <em>I would have left you to die.</em></p><p>He would have left Yeza in that cell. And if Essek had not received the answers he wanted, Yeza’s silence might well have been answered with torture. This passionate, brilliant man who comes alive at the mere mention of the word <em>potion – </em>Essek almost killed him.</p><p>Like he almost killed Bryce Feelid. Like he almost killed Kiri.</p><p>Like he did kill any number of people. Countless dutiful Watchmasters and scared children and brilliant scholars with wives and sons –</p><p>‘But a friend of my wife’s gave me some of this lichen he grows on his own armour,’ Yeza is saying. ‘It’s some kind of semi-phosphoric organic matter, and the properties are really just amazing –’</p><p><em>You </em><em>are a prodigy,</em> Essek thinks, <em>who</em><em> let yourself be dragged into the Assembly’s research on the Beacons, and by so doing you dragged yourself and all those you loved into a nightmare.</em></p><p>Yeza is him. Like Bryce was him, like Kiri was him.</p><p>‘And I really think that with the right heat exposure – oh, gods, I think Luc just stole someone’s clothes while they’re swimming – ‘</p><p>Essek bites the inside of his mouth to force back a vicious laugh. <em>Well played, Beauregard. You have made it impossible for me to turn these people into an abstract anymore. Are you satisfied?</em></p><p>‘I need to go sort this out. It was great to meet you, sir, if you ever want a full explanation of that theory I mentioned, just write to the Lavish Chateau and they’ll forward it to me – ‘</p><p>Essek watches him tear away across the sand. As soon as Yeza can no longer see him, he crouches to carve into the sand. It is a good thing that his fingers remember the sigil for his home’s teleportation circle, because his mind is empty.</p><p>The cold of his tower hits like a slap as the spell deposits him in his laboratory, and he drops his parasol onto his desk and grips the back of a chair until his fingers ache. He stands there for five seconds. Then ten. Then ten minutes.</p><p>He has spent so many months refusing to think about the dead. Telling himself that they would always have died, sooner or later - and if not them, others. Besides, so many people had a hand in bringing those deaths about. Essek's was just one touch upon many, and it was not even the final blow: that was a falling tower in Zadash, and a Beacon vanished without trace. Essek has <em>needed </em>to tell himself this, because if he stopped even for a second –</p><p>Well. It would have hurt, like it does now.</p><p><em>What is the point of this, Beauregard? What is the fucking </em>point? <em>I know that what I did was not good, not right. Do you want me to lie in my guilt like a dying beast in the mud? What is the use of inflicting that pain upon myself? Does it raise the dead? Does it regain your trust?</em></p><p>He draws in a breath. Then his hands flash out, slashing glyphs into the air, and gravity shudders and slams into the room around him. Desks careen into walls and chairs collapse with a groan of shattered wood. Parchments spiral madly before sinking to the floor, and Essek sinks with them, legs folded under him, breaths coming hard.</p><p>
  <em>It was going to happen anyway. It was going to happen anyway. I only helped to set the time and place –</em>
</p><p>A time and place that hurt people whom the Mighty Nein love. And which, therefore, hurt the Mighty Nein.</p><p><em>No one undeserving has been hurt, </em>Essek told Ludinus. Light. He is so perfect a liar.</p><p>Essek clamps his teeth together and draws in a long, shuddering breath. Nausea tugs at his insides. He does not understand what Beauregard wants him to <em>do, </em>because he does not know how to mend any of this, he does not know how anyone could - </p><p>And then a sense-memory occurs to him. The press of lips to his forehead, and the warmth of hands on his cheeks.</p><p>Essek sits up straight.</p><p>He has no idea what he is supposed to do. But Caleb, at some point after whatever happened to cause the fathomless grief in his eyes – Caleb knew. Caleb has done enough that he has won friends who would die for him. Caleb still does enough, every day.</p><p>Once again, Essek lifts his hands to cast. Hesitation strikes him halfway through, and he almost stops, but the spell flickers and the urge not to waste his magic forces him to continue. Essek clears his throat and speaks into the spell.</p><p>‘I’m sorry to intrude, Caleb. But when you have a moment to spare, could you perhaps stop by my home? I could use your advice.’</p>
<hr/><p>Essek is tired of talking. But once again, he talks, and Caleb listens.</p><p>He talks about drinking with Bryce and escorting Kiri and speaking with Yeza, and he talks until his throat aches from overuse. Caleb says very little, but he watches Essek with an unfaltering gaze, and finally he nods and produces a packet of Caduceus’s tea. Essek brews a kettle. They return to the living room with steaming mugs.</p><p>‘Beauregard ran her idea past us,’ Caleb says – the first words either of them have uttered in ten minutes, and the first Caleb's uttered in an hour that weren’t monosyllables. ‘For a few days now, I've been on the brink of asking Jester to contact you, to ask if you had done what she said.’</p><p>‘But you didn’t. Why?’</p><p>‘I was afraid to hear you say no.’</p><p>Essek sips his tea. He needs to; his throat is dry. ‘Why do you want me to change so badly?’</p><p>Caleb’s eyes drop to his mug. His fingers drum on the sides. ‘For you to stay as you are would be… a waste.’</p><p>‘Of what? My potential?’</p><p>‘A waste of <em>you. </em>Essek.’</p><p>Essek holds his mug against his lips without sipping. A barrier. He cannot bear for Caleb to see his face, right now. Cannot let Caleb see what it means to him, to be cared for beyond his abilities, beyond what he can offer.</p><p><em>Why </em>he cannot bear it, he can't say.</p><p>‘You saw me in that cell, months ago,’ Caleb says. ‘The Scourger, the one you killed at my request – I reached out to her, and all I got from her in return was this.’ He waves towards the scar on his neck, a tiny streak of flesh even paler than the rest of him. ‘In Rexxentrum, months ago, I reached out to – to another of Ikithon’s students. I thought she didn’t hear me. But then I reached out to you. And I am still trying to reach out to – some others –and for the first time, I am starting to see them... not push me away. Just starting.’</p><p>He sets down his mug and clasps his hands in his lap. ‘I'm beginning to feel hopeful that one day, someone is going to reach back. I want to - to <em>believe </em>that they will, and that people like us are not made for nothing except to hurt others and to be hurt.’</p><p>‘People like us,’ Essek repeats. It's still strange to consider that he and Caleb have atrocities in common, as well as magic. ‘I know that Ikithon trains the Scourgers. And I know that you were once intended to be one of them. Is this what you consider yourself damned for? For serving a man who dips his toes into the shadows as part of his job?’</p><p>Caleb’s head jerks in an odd way that’s neither a shake or a nod. ‘It's more than that. Ikithon is – you think he is someone like yourself. A curious mage who for political or practical reasons sometimes engages in a little bit of torture. Who cuts a throat or two here and there because he must. And he is that, but he is  - he is more. He would bring prisoners to us, traitors to the Empire, and I would torture them slowly and I would kill them. Most of them were not traitors, of course. They were convenient. Perfect tools to turn children into people who could murder whenever ordered.'</p><p>‘<em>Children? </em>How old were you?’</p><p>‘I was young. But old enough to know better. And yes, if I had refused, he would have meddled with my mind until I forgot my reservations –’ Essek thinks of Adeen, and his stomach drops - ‘Or he would have had me killed. But that is a risk I should have taken.<em>’</em></p><p>‘No one can ask that risk of a child.’ Essek is startled to hear himself snap the words. He's not sure what appals him more: what Caleb is describing, or Caleb’s ready acceptance of the guilt. ‘For <em>this,</em> you consider yourself damned?’</p><p>Caleb breathes in. He rubs at his sleeves as if trying to claw something out of his skin, and says, ‘No.’</p><p>There's more, then. Caleb sighs, and for a second it's like the air in the room is electric-charged by the sound, vibrating from the force of the things Caleb is not saying. But he still doesn't say them, and the moment passes, and Essek understands. He takes a few more slow sips of his tea, and waits until Caleb’s body is no longer tension-rigid before speaking.</p><p>‘Caleb, I am not going to sugarcoat my actions, or my feelings towards them. I do not feel the way you want me to. I see the regret in your eyes every day, but I <em>do not feel as you do</em>.’ His fingers clench around his teacup. ‘On your ship, Caduceus allowed me to claim that I had acted from misguided righteousness. At the negotiations, Beauregard asked me how I felt about seeing Adeen in chains, and I could have pretended that I regretted what I did to him. And now, I could tell you that I have spent hours weeping on my bed from the guilt. Or that I sit here loathing every inch of myself, wishing it all undone. Sometimes, when I think of how all this has cost me your trust, I almost <em>want </em>to feel that way, but -’</p><p>‘But you do not.’</p><p>‘I do not. I have never deluded myself into thinking I was doing something right. I will not try to delude you, now, into thinking that I regret things that I do not regret. I respect you and your intelligence too much for that.’</p><p>Caleb leans forward in his chair. ‘I believe you. But you called me here. You went to visit our friends in Alfield and Hupperdook and Nicodranas. You wouldn't have done any of that if you weren't reaching back to me. I hope you wouldn't.’</p><p>Essek opens his mouth, but Caleb cuts across, his voice quiet, and his face – odd. Like he’s surprised by the words leaving his own lips. ‘You don’t <em>need</em> to lie in the mud despising yourself, or beg us on your knees for forgiveness. None of us want you to live in agony. <em>I </em>do not. You don’t need to be good, Essek. Just… trying.’</p><p>At some point while Caleb spoke, Essek’s body apparently went very numb. He drains his tea, trying to focus on the warmth of it.</p><p>
  <em>Just trying.</em>
</p><p>A thought flits across his mind: perhaps he fights his own changing because it brings him this close to Caleb. Because it makes him so very aware of the unspoken <em>something</em> between them, something that simmers fiercer when Caleb says things like this. Which makes Essek fear that soon the unspoken thing will be spoken, and then -</p><p>He doesn't know what then, only that he is afraid of it. Even considering it is terrifying. Carefully, Essek stops.</p><p>‘Beauregard didn't give you that list because she expects you to change completely overnight. No one could expect that. You had a century to get locked into who you are, of course it's going to take time to -’</p><p>‘Then what <em>does </em>she expect from me?’</p><p>‘She doesn't expect anything. She hopes. Was she right to? Even a little?’</p><p>‘Perhaps.' The word leaves his mouth before he can second-guess it. 'I cannot say I feel... entirely the same as I did before. I still believe that the war was always going to happen. But I'm willing to admit that my refusal to regret perhaps has something to do with protecting myself from how I know that regret will feel.’ His mouth dries even as he's speaking, and he licks his lips and hurries on before he can dwell on anything he's just said. 'And... I have also decided on something. There must be not be another conflict. I want to ensure the peace you made. And not just because another war could expose me, but because I endangered your friends, and they should not be endangered again.’</p><p>Seconds pass. Caleb stares at him, and for a second Essek thinks that he looks ready to cry. But he doesn't; he nods. ‘So what could you do, with your talents, your mind, to make certain of that?’</p><p>A puzzle. Essek can do this: forget all the questions of forgiveness and atonement and venom in his veins, and solve the problem. ‘There have been debates in court,’ he says, slowly.  ‘Squabbles, really. About making some gesture to the Empire, a gift, to show a commitment to the peace. Most are convinced it would be a lost cause, and everyone else thinks it would be a humiliation, but…’</p><p>‘But it is worth trying, perhaps?’</p><p>‘Yes. And there is something that Watchmaster Feelid mentioned, about a guard who came back from the front lines unable to walk.’</p><p>And there it is again. That intoxicating spark in Caleb's eyes. ‘And you don’t <em>need </em>to walk. If a magical item could be designed that would let others float like you do –’</p><p>'The Bright Queen would be loath to gift such a thing to the Empire,' Essek warns him. 'She guards Dunamancy jealously, and as far as she is concerned, the Dynasty should be receiving apologies and favours, not giving them. What we need is an ally within the Empire. Someone who would pretend that the idea had been theirs from the start. They would reach out to the Dynasty, requesting our specialist knowledge of graviturgy, proposing a collaboration for the benefit of both nations. I suppose it's too much to hope that you know an enchanter with both the skills and the right political ties - '</p><p>Caleb is already grinning. ‘I know just the man. All four of him.’</p><p>Essek’s mind is racing too fast for him to dwell on that last comment. ‘So you suggest these devices to your contact. If he agrees... I suppose the Assembly would have to oversee and fund such an endeavour. I know little of Archmage Uludan. Would he be amenable?'</p><p>'He's got an ego the size of the Menagerie Coast, but he's a shrewd man, and I don't think there's any real malice in him. He'd see the long-term gains. And he'd see the need for my friend in Zadash to be the Empire's representative. I don't think the Dynasty would never work with the Assembly, not directly - present company excepted.'</p><p>There's not even a trace of an edge to those last few words. Essek thinks they might be a joke. He smiles, in case he's right. 'If Uludan agrees, then you and I can relay the offer to the Bastion. We will need allies to help us counter the Bright Queen's reluctance; Waccoh could be persuaded, I think. She'd agree to anything that would get more coin thrown at the Conservatory, and she's climbing the walls now that she cannot make war machines.’</p><p>‘What of your Den? Would they back us?’</p><p>‘If I spoke to my mother beforehand, yes. This is exactly the kind of thing she's hungry for, something to secure trade and political alliances with the world beyond Xhorhas.'</p><p>‘Good. Good.’ Essek can almost see the note-taking in Caleb’s head. ‘It won't be easy to persuade anyone to open their coffers so soon after the war. Or to make sure that the Assembly gives a crateload of magic items to the people, rather than hoarding them for themselves.’</p><p>There’s a half-second in which Essek thinks that’s how it should be: magical knowledge being kept by those who know how to use it. But he reminds himself of how the Assembly snatched at what he gave them and offered crumbs in return. Of how Trent Ikithon in particular is an even greater fuckhole than he’d thought. And of tired, kind, Bryce Feelid and their short-staffed town and wounded guard. ‘I’m sure they will hoard a few. But with the threat of a diplomatic incident hanging over them if they give in to their greed, I think they’ll be sensible.’</p><p>It is possible. It will be difficult, and daunting, and perhaps it will fail. But when has that ever stopped Essek before? When has it ever stopped either of them?</p><p>They stare at each other, grinning. </p><p>‘To the lab?’ Essek says. </p><p>‘<em>Yes.’</em></p><p>Essek races for the stairs so fast that he forgets to float, Caleb one step behind him.</p>
<hr/><p>It takes time, of course.</p><p>And, once he and Caleb have spilled their manic rush of thoughts onto parchment, it takes conversations. Caleb returns to the Empire, to float the idea to Pumat Sol and Archmage Uludan. Essek stays in Rosohna, making hopefully-subtle overtures to Waccoh (which is amusing) and to his mother (which is agonising). And once Caleb returns, they speak to the entire court (nerve-wracking, but, against all odds, successful.) The Bright Queen’s initial distaste is soothed by Quana’s patient encouragement. Then it's further mollified by the assurance that no Assembly members will be involved directly, barring Uludan's oversight, gold, and clever tongue. The Umavi, hungry to be a diplomat for the first time in centuries, offers Den Thelyss’s coin.</p><p>Waccoh is gleeful. Enchanter Sol is all bemused happiness to be of service. Caleb stands, through all of it, at Essek’s side.</p><p>It’s agreed. Essek, Waccoh and the Pumats will work together to spearhead the development, and the devices will be rolled out to as many war amputees as possible, free of charge. Not that there will ever be enough for everyone. There could be, but neither Uludan nor the Umavi offers more coin than the bare minimum.</p><p>Essek is not surprised by that. He<em> is</em> surprised by how disgusted he is with them both.</p><p>Another, more pleasant surprise follows: the weeks he spends working on the project are the best of his life.</p><p>His Shadowhand duties are passed along, temporarily, to a colleague. Essek spends his mornings pushing parchment and coffee across the tables to Waccoh and however many Pumats are present. Every lunch break hums with discussion. Books pile up around their workstations. And then a wave of exhausted inspiration carries them late into the evening, and suddenly Waccoh is shouting and the Pumats are scribbling and –</p><p>The equation snaps into place –</p><p>– and under the elation, there’s a crushing realisation that Essek’s work is done. There’s no more theory to be figured out, only the enchanting, and that’s for Waccoh and the Pumats to do. He lets a Pumat hug him. He shakes Waccoh’s hand and smiles, and he watches them gush to each other about runic engraving. Then, once he's sure they've forgotten him, he drifts out of the Conservatory, ready to head home and sit in front of his fireplace, numb again for the first time in weeks.</p><p>Instead, he turns a corner out of the Bastion and almost floats into Caleb.</p><p>The numbness vanishes. Essek fumbles out a greeting. Caleb fumbles one back, then adds, ‘I came to buy paper. Nicodranas is out.’</p><p>‘Out of <em>paper? </em>How?’</p><p>There’s a faint flush to Caleb’s cheeks. ‘Rosohna may now also be out of paper. Anyway, I thought I’d check on the project before going back.’</p><p>‘Oh. It’s done. At least, my role in it is. Waccoh thinks the first prototype should be ready in a week.’</p><p>Caleb nods, and turns to retrace his steps down the street. Essek follows. In the silence that falls, he remembers that he should ask where Caleb is going. He doesn’t. That way he can keep pretending that they’ll be strolling through the city together for a while, and that Caleb isn’t simply hunting for an alleyway to teleport in.</p><p>But they do turn into an alleyway, of course. Caleb glances both ways, checks that no one is peering at them from any windows, and digs into a pocket for his chalk. ‘You’ve enjoyed working with them,’ he says, kneeling.</p><p>‘Very much indeed. It’s been a unique meeting of minds.’</p><p>The chalk scrapes out circles onto the cobbles. ‘Beauregard will be pleased to hear that. She was worried.’</p><p>‘That I would harm them?’</p><p>‘That you would push them away. I told her how you refused to lie about your motives. She said that perhaps you were honest about your ugliest thoughts as a way of putting up a wall. Driving us off. Making sure you were in control of how you lost your friends.’ There’s a shadow in his face, as if this means more than Essek knows.</p><p>‘That may be true. Though I think it is more that if you are all to remain my friends, I would prefer for you to be friends with <em>me.</em> After all, if I’m honest about the worst parts of me, then at least you have a choice about whether you can abide them. I owe you that choice, I think.'</p><p>Caleb marks out the last few lines and straightens up. ‘So be honest with me now. How does it feel? Knowing that you have done some good?’</p><p><em>Good. </em>Essek had not been thinking of that way, and the shift of perspective freezes his tongue for a moment. ‘It was… I’m not sure. I’m glad that I did it, I think.’</p><p>‘Do you –’ Caleb hesitates, then presses on – ‘Do you… feel good, when you think about doing something like this again? Just small things, little things to leave the world better?’</p><p>Essek looks down. Resists the urge to touch his forehead, in the place where Caleb once kissed him. ‘I don’t know if it feels good, exactly. But it feels important. And that has been enough for me before.’</p><p>A silence. Caleb stops brushing chalk from his fingertips and looks at Essek. At the ground. At Essek again.</p><p>‘Thank you, friend,’ he says.</p><p>Essek’s eyes heat. Embarrassing, really, that one extra word tacked onto the end of a sentence can make him feel this way. ‘For what?’</p><p>‘For reaching back.’</p><p>Something’s different. Essek studies Caleb’s face, his bearing, and it clicks: the guarded look that Caleb has worn around him ever since his lies were exposed is gone. There’s a new energy in its place, an openness, a lightness, and –</p><p><em>I gave you hope, </em>Essek realises, and there's a half-second where both his breathing and his thoughts hitch.</p><p>Caleb has still not teleported away. His circle is drawn, but he’s standing on the edge and smiling instead of stepping into it. And now he’s holding out his hand and saying, ‘You could come back with me. Tell our friends what you have accomplished.’</p><p>A warmth sparks in Essek's chest and swells, and swells until it feels almost ready to break through his skin. Caleb is inviting him to Nicodranas. Caleb wants Essek to follow him to where the Mighty Nein are waiting.</p><p>Which makes it seem impossible that Essek might <em>not </em>have a life ahead of him. It’s inevitable that he will have friends who smile when they see him. Inevitable that he’ll work on more projects with brilliant minds who make him feel like <em>himself </em>just by being in the same room with him. It’s inevitable that he’ll be able to say <em>I am sorry for what I did, </em>and live with that thought instead of raising walls to keep it at bay. Life is inevitable, and kinship is inevitable, and –</p><p>Caleb. He’s smiling. Waiting. And Essek dares to imagine that this, this gravity between them, this sense that the two of them are as intertwined as the runes of the circle drawn around them – <em>this </em>is inevitable too.</p><p>He knows he's drunk on his own delight. Every Resonant Echo he's ever summoned proves that there is no inevitability. It was never inevitable that Caleb would hold out his hand. It was never inevitable that Essek would reach forward and take it.</p><p>But he does.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><i>You do not have to be good.<br/>You do not have to walk on your knees<br/>for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.<br/>You only have to let the soft animal of your body<br/>love what it loves.<br/>Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. </i><br/>- From <i>Wild Geese</i> by Mary Oliver</p><p>Fun fact: the alias Essek used translates to something like, ‘transformed untrustworthy one.’</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>